Keytruda is what they gave Jimmy Carter to cure him of his cancer.
https://www.statnews.com/2015/12/18/jimmy-carter-cancer-drug-keytruda/
“Keytruda actually did better with respect to providing protection against progression of cancer and more importantly overall survival. So now you have a drug that has many fewer side effects that’s much more effective”
Merck is testing against 30 different tumors.
“We are rushing to try to get this drug to as many people because we have to study it tumor by tumor.”
“So far we have it for melanoma and second line non small lung cancer.”
“It’s really hard to say how hard to say how high the ceiling is, because in many ways we’re trying to figure out which tumors it doesn’t work in right now. So we’re very excited about the possibility that this could be a broad spectrum agent against many different malignancies.”
“Every year we spend about 7 billion dollars worth of research across all the categories we’re in clearly out of pocket, it’s got to be 2 billion dollars this year on Keytruda.”
“It really is [quite and investment] and I think we have to have a very serious conversation in this country about the healthcare system.”
“Society needs these drugs. The reality of the world is if we don’t have a sufficient return on investment, we will not get the significant capital that we need that we have to put up for significant risk for significant periods of time in order to continue current and future research.”
Merck CEO Frazier on Immunotherapy, Drug Pricing
Ken Frazier, chairman and chief executive officer at Merck, explains the company’s work on immune-oncology treatment for cancer patients, the amount of R&D money it takes to bring a new medicine to market, drug pricing and health care costs, and the battle against Alzheimer’s disease, and the need f…
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2016-07-01/merck-ceo-frazier-on-immunotherapy-drug-pricing